Natsume Sōseki and the Conflict of Genres, or on the Invention of a New Literary Tradition – The Haiku-Play

Considered by literary history to be the dominant figure of modern Japanese literature, Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916) is the most influential writer of the Meiji era, an era whose oscillation between tradition and modernity he reflects in his texts, imbued with moral scepticism and a lucid critical attitude toward the thought of his time. Starting from the novel Wagahai wa neko de aru 吾輩は猫である, as well as from Natsume Sōseki’s theoretical writings on literature, I will analyse the ambiguous relationship between modernity and tradition as it is reflected in the discussions about literature in the novel. Thus, by using the logical method of argumentum ad absurdum (reductio ad absurdum), the writer shows, in an ironic key, why “haiku theatre,” a hybrid genre created in the spirit of the so-called modernisation of literature, makes no poetic sense. In fact, Buddhist thought was also no stranger to the use of this method in demonstrating that theories of substance and essence, once the logic of their own principles is followed through, prove to be unfounded and absurd.

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